There are a lot of decisions that can be made that risk descending the proverbial slope - many ethical issues having nothing to do with this discussion included.
There's a difference, however slight, between screening for existing problems that are known to run in the families involved and simple selection of the "best" characteristics. Each human is precious - and it's a Good Thing to try and ensure that new humans will not die horribly or prematurely from things that can be avoided (or simply by choosing the more viable of the available embryos in an IVF process. Most people will, of course, continue to be born the old-fashioned way - since these risks only affect a relatively small number of people.
We, for instance, have no genetic "issues" leading us to IVF, it's a case of having no success over many years of the traditional method. Most IVF couples are in the same boat - genetic reasons are a tiny percentage of the reasons for IVF, it's usually plain old infertility problems that bring you there, not building a master race or any of that kind of crap.
The other issue this touches is the "what is a life?" question. Obviously, there are the traditional pro-life and pro-choice sides. In normal conception, one egg is fertilized by one sperm - and the question then becomes one of when is it human? Killing humans is, of course, wrong - but the definition is far different between the medical and the religious perspectives, and most people cleave between those standards. Most assisted reproductive technologies create (and often fertilize) as many as 20 eggs - are we morally obligated to implant every one of those? I don't think so (and 20 children is not in my plan, I'll guarantee that!). Is it an all-or-nothing propostion?
But if we can repair things like Huntington's or Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) in the womb or in the petri dish, why not? I don't think we should necessarily abort the child who will be born blind, but if the parents have 10 viable embryos to choose, and one of them has a gene that leads to blindness, and one has the CF genes, assuming they can't be repaired, why implant those when the others don't have it? That's where I draw the line. Biological reproduction is a crapshoot too, when genetic defects are concerned - having the gene doesn't guarantee that the child will have it, too.
I'd avoid the Mengele references as a part of this discussion, though. Not only did he and his sort remove a good deal of my relatives from the human race, but his effort were designed to produce better Aryans (survival of the fittest) - whereas what we're generally talking about here is intended to simply produce humans (of any race) that survive, period. There's no master plan, other than trying to provide a couple with a healthy child.
And it's awful close to invoking Godwin's Law, too, besides being something that, in a lot of places, would get you assaulted by the person you accuse.
This couple, as I've read in many of the reports, wanted another child. Unfortunately, they had a significant risk of conceiving another child with the same disorder. Since it was possible to screen the embryo for the defect, they did so - and as luck would have it, a healthy embryo could also, after birth, give them a chance to cure their other child.
There are some aspects of this (ie., selection) that could raise ethical questions, but I don't think this case is one those questions apply to. If anything, this is an exapmple of the positive uses of the kind of reproductive and diagnostic technologies that are available to us.
I can also state unequivocally (since my wife and I are going through this now) that IVF is not a trivial procedure at all. The process is complicated, painful, and requires substantial fortitude and commitment to complete. The end result is a fairly large number of fertilized embryos, of which the most robust are identified and up to five of which are implanted (in all but a handful of cases, only one or two of them implant successfully). In a case where there is a substantial risk of a deadly defect being passed, it's to the benefit of the future child, the parents, and society as a whole if that defect can be identified and either avoided or even corrected.
The challenge is to avoid the slippery slope of typing for positive, "trivial" characteristics (like hair color, eye color, sex, height potential), and just look for the severe and fatal genetic defects that can occur.
Windows to Mac ports often have to reinvent a decent amount of the wheel, since they will typically use the MS DirectX API's (DirectSound, DirectX, etc.). This can result in some inefficiency in the port.
Also, Windows does a somewhat better job of swapping out RAM as needed - the kernel has a smaller footprint, despite the OS' bloat overall. Apple's monolithic MacOS needs about 32MB of RAM just to boot nowadays - all their newer systems ship with 64MB or more in the base config. My iBook, with VM off, uses 42.2MB of RAM for the OS! Thank heavens I have 160MB in it! With VM on, the RAM usage drops to 27MB for the OS, but performance drops noticeably. The MacOS VM model is fundamentally broken, and will remain so until the end of time (at least in the Classic OS). OS X will reduce memory needs, though Classic apps will continue to be pigs.
They also copy a ton o' stuff off the CD - but I think you can skip a lot of it and run a lite install.
It plays quite nicely on our iMac DV-450, and pretty well, though occasionally a little sluggish on my iBook-300. The gameplay is actually a little snappier on the iMac than it is on my Athlon 700 - indicating to me that the folks who ported it did a really nice job, and concentrated on speed over size.
Well, they claim presentations are one of the things it's good for now (it's composite video). The iBook can do either 640x480 or 800x600 natively (at least on the original one, it does a pretty good job of scaling), and the 640x480 mode should be good enough for PowerPointing if the 800x600 mode isn't supported for video out.
It'd be nicer if the video out was S-Video, but this works, too.
All in all, it's a good feature set for an entry-level laptop. Don't forget, Apple wants you to buy a PowerBook for the heavy lifting and "corporate"-type work, anyway. Other than the screen resolution and 66 MHz system bus, this matches up real well against a Pismo now. Apple's portables are arguably more directly competitive versus Wintel prices at this point than their desktops are.
They lowered the price on the base model by $100 (to $1499), bumped up the speed, and added Firewire, a bigger drive, and an A/V out. Too bad that Key Lime is so damned ugly - but the masses may just go for it. They had already increased base RAM and HD size once, back in January or February (to 64MB and 6GB, respectively), with no price change.
Actually, the new iBook SE is particularly sweet - a 466 MHz processor, 10GB drive, 64MB RAM, DVD, TFT display, Mobility 128 video, and Firewire for $1800 compares real well with the brand-name Wintel competition. I may consider upgrading at some point myself - I have one of the original iBooks that I hacked a 6GB drive into (taking an iBook apart just can't suck enough, by the way), and it's been real nice, but more speed and Firewire would just rule completely for me.
That's the standard Java disclaimer - Apple includes Java, so they use the disclaimer to cover their collective butts.
Microsoft includes the disclaimer, too (since they have a JVM also), as should any commercial Linux vendor with a JVM, but I think in Microsoft's case it refers more to the rest of their operating system than it does to Java...
Did anybody consider that maybe the Martians have only recently (in geologic time) evolved to the point that they could build machines powerful enough to lob the darned things at us?
It's probably enough fun to keep them pretty busy nowadays - I imagine with Martian weather things could otherwise be a little monotonous.
We digress a little here, but M$ introduced Windows Update as part of Windows 98, in mid '98. The Red Hat update wizard they have arrived with the debut of RH 6.0, whenever that was. Sure, the Linux update wizards are robust and capable, but the Microsoft one was there real early in the game, and it works very well. They update any apps that Microsoft is willing to allow into the MS sandbox (for instance, Flash and Shockwave updates can be downloaded from it), but not third-party apps in general.
They also have an Office Update site as well that uses the same technology (a funky ActiveX control) to check for and patch Office 2000 code.
What Microsoft doesn't do is roll every single update into Windows Update - a lot of the security hole patches for servers are only accessible from the kbase article or the Security homepage. Windows Update is more focused on the consumer OS and apps.
Theo has a security audit model that works terrifically well - having trusted, talented people audit the crap out of the code and being real finicky about releases.
The Linux model (and the generic Open Source model, at that), relies on a broad pool of users with code access reading and using it. A lot of bugs, many of them security-relat, will be found this way.
However, though security bugs will be found and fixed with the infinite-monkeys methodology, it does fall short on finding security issues proactively. You can find a lot of holes in that fashion, but to really ultra-secure and OS, you need people who are as freakish about security as Theo. The other side of that is that the users who seek out OpenBSD are also likely to be much smarter about security themselves.
Linux is a reasonably secure OS for the "average" user, and the methodologies are adequate for the end result. The companies distributing the OS need to be more proactive about looking for holes, though - there's a lot of ways to root a Linux box, and the consequences of allowing it to happen are sufficiently high that it's worth more work to find holes before they get into the distro.
Say what you will about Microsoft, but their Windows Update is a really nice mechanism for distributing patches and updates - none of the Linux vendors (even Mandrake) come close to that level of functionality. Most Slashdot readers will be fairly proactive about their boxes, but that doesn't mean all Linux users are like that. They need an easier way to patch and update their boxes when holes are found.
"Cadillac Man" wasn't by any means a great film, but it really wasn't bad, either. Williams' character was fairly interesting and entertaing ("God, I love to sell!"), and Tim Robbins played his old-style Dumb White Guy part well. The only lost points I saw in it were from letting Fran Drescher have an opportunity to speak on the big screen - I hate that voice!
Anyhow, it wasn't that bad - worth a rainy night rental.
How could they have put "Cadillac Man" on the list when there are dozens of overlooked Kevin Costner movies to choose from?
If it's simple to support an existing Linux port of a game using the compatibility libraries, then this is a can't lose for either Loki or BSDi. It raises the BSD profile a little further, and helps Loki sell a few more games with no real effort (they aren't repackaging or recoding).
I'm not sure either Linux or BSD is mature enough to be a viable gaming platform yet, but that is an issue best covered in this thread from Sunday.
Novell brings a couple of things to the table. First, of course, is NetWare. Still the fastest pure file/print solution out there, with pretty good Java servlet capability bolted on. Then, there's the crown jewel - NDS. NDS is already highly portable, can manage users on Unix and Windows, and can be used to manage desktops very nicely. NDS can be extended to almost anything, and unlike MS Active Directory, NDS has over 8 years of development (and live users) behind it.
IBM has systems available all over the map - from Intel PC servers running Windows or Linux, to RS/6000 systems with AIX, to AS/400 and S/390 minis and mainframes. NDS could help them tie this picture together better. And they own Lotus - which could benefit nicely from better NDS integration.
Not to mention that IBM has done a nice job with Lotus - sure, 1-2-3/SmartSuite is toast, but they've done a terrific business with Notes, and still have a substantial lead over Microsoft in the category.
It's a good fit for IBM, good technology, and a chance to get one of the few missing pieces in IBM's technology arsenal for a cheap price. IBM could buy Novell with pocket change. I'm surprised this deal didn't happen a year ago.
Any environment that is maintained without change controls and proper procedures is a disaster waiting to happen, regardless of the OS platform used. If anything, it's easier to give Linux (or any Unix) users partial administration rights that are just designed for that user to perform certain proscribed tasks.
This is where analysts go wrong often, and I work for a company that uses both Gartner and Meta - they are useful for certain things and can provide useful industry analysis. The problem is that sometimes general purpose analysts don't have a full technical background, and wind up having to speculate on things using bad data (that they don't realize is problematic). This analyst had some good points in the earlier part of the article, but went to the wrong source due to his lack of understanding of change controls and of Linux . If he had understood it properly, this would not have been flamebait.
That said, is Linux the ideal server environment for the clueless? Of course not. It can be like giving a loaded gun to a child. But to go on someone's word that any Joe Admin can screw Linux up because "anybody can change it" and that therefore Linux is a Bad Thing is just silly.
After all, if you want to really screw up Windows, there's an easy way. Just install something.
Of course, Linux games don't sell that well! There aren't that many Linux desktop users yet today, and they aren't necessarily heading for stores to buy their software, either. Not to mention that Linux is relatively difficult to configure and optimize for gaming, mainly due to complex and incomplete support for 3D, high-end sound cards, and cool input devices (like force feedback controllers).
When an average desktop Linux distro has support for all this in the base install and easy to configure, there will be more people who do their gaming on Linux. Until then, most users who like to play games will probably keep a Win98 partition around for games, and do the rest of their work in Linux. In the meantime, Linux gamers are barely a blip on the charts, relatively speaking, and stocking games isn't worth the shelf space for most retailers. Hell, if Mac users have trouble finding games in stores (and getting them to sell in reasonably large numbers when they do appear in stores), with a million-plus Macs sold every year, then Linux users aren't even on the radar by comparison. In time, they probably will be, though - but it won't be until we solve the problems I mentioned above.
There's money in Linux software for some vendors, and there's probably money in Linux games, too - but patience is a virtue until the desktop is ready for the true mainstream. That day is coming, hopefully soon.
Actually, in my case, you're right. I did want some relatively small restraints put on them, but I think a breakup was a bad idea. I had a letter in Infoworld a while back that can be searched on that had my whole solution - I won't repost it here.
If a society agrees on rules to conduct business by, I have no problem with those rules being used and enforced. Since we haven't risen up to overturn the Sherman Act, then it's the law of the land until such time as it is overturned - Microsoft broke it, and should be made to play by the rules. Carving them up isn't right.
Because, despite there being a tremendous number of silly people associated with the stated goals of the Libertarian Party, I happen to agree with the overall goals anyway.
To oversimplify the decision-making process for me:
The Republicans want to let my company do whatever it wants, and tell me what to do in the privacy of my own home. They assume that I'm Christian, and generally don't support not being one. And they want to take a lot of my money and waste it on dumb stuff like shooting down missiles.
The Democrats want to tell my company what to do, and let me do whatever I want, but only if I'm a minority or gay. They want to take even more of my money, and instead of wasting it on shooting down missiles, they want to waste it on a big bureaucracy of people who will, in turn, give a little bit of that money to poor people.
The Libertarians want government to stay the heck out of people's lives, let them make their own business and moral choices, and use as little money as possible doing so. Other parties have made big splashes - the radical left has turned to the Green Party, and the Reform Party sprung into being on the whims and bankroll of one man (let's see how they do with Perot off the ballot before we call them a real third party). Neither of them appeal to me. Were he running for President under any banner, Jesse Ventura is ironically the politician whose views agree most closely with mine on most issues.
That's why I'm a Libertarian. It's the closest party to my views. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but the Republicrats do nothing for me, Nader is pathetic, Perot is nuts, and Buchanan is possibly the most frightening man in mainstream politics.
Yes, libertarian thought puts the individual first. But generally, that comes from a belief that the individual is capable of making their own informed decisions about what's best for them - not from a "me first" attitude.
Where that coincides with Objectivism is the raising up of the individual. But Objectivism leans more to the "me first" than does libertarianism. However, despite the reasons, since the two do converge on the individual, a lot of libertarians are Objectivists, and virtually all Objectivists are libertarian.
However, that leaves a lot of us who wouldn't touch Objectivism with a ten-foot pole, but are libertarian in belief and practice, and Libertarian (with a capital letter this time) in political affiliation.
The difference to me is that libertarianism is fundamentally optimistic about human nature. We assume that people may be mildly selfish, but are willing to make some sacrifice on behalf of the common good if they are not coerced to do so. I may not be as wealthy as a dot-com millionaire (or Rob and Jeff), but I give money to charitable causes on a regular basis, donate pretty nice stuff to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and the like, bring canned food to my town's homeless shelter, and my used newspapers and other stuff to the pet shelter, and also vociferously support the Libertarian Party, of which I am a member. No, I'm not a saint, but there's no conflict involved there, folks. And I'm not the only one who behaves this way.
The people who don't Get It generally confuse libertarianism with Objectivism. Don't paint us all with that brush - it's far too wide and the Objectivist paint is far too thick. A reasonable amount of altruism is not incompatible with being a Libertarian.
I think that OS X will be shipped in a nominally secure configuration. But, as we all know, new vulnerabilities in existing systems are found regularly. MacOS X is BSD at the core, for the most part. A lot of the vulnerabilities that people find in BSD will probably apply to OS X as well, and the average user has little to no awareness of security issues (as witnessed by the Windows users of the world).
I don't think that MacOS X will be inherently unsecure, though, just vulnerable - there's a difference. The classic MacOS is extemely secure, with vulnerability mainly being in the area of DOS-type attacks. That's not by design, per se - it's because the MacOS is single-user in nature, with no CLI or real shell capability. MacOS X is a multi-user, UNIX-based system. That's a whole new ballgame from a security perspective as far as Mac users go.
I can see both sides here. When I was just starting out many moons ago, I could have used a tool to make editing config files and managing the system easier. It would have saved me a lot of time and agony. Today, I can run a system just fine, but it can be a pain having to remember all the details. Easy-to-use GUI config tools definitely have a place, since not everybody can or necessarily should be hand-tweaking everything - opening up the system to misconfigurations. Not in a world filled with script kiddies, in particular.
If Linux is going to penetrate the mainstream of computing, we need these tools - Joe User doesn't want to know about editing a.conf file - not now, not ever. Who are we to say that's wrong? But more importantly, we need to start issuing distributions that are optimized for single-user use. Why load wu-ftpd if it's not needed by a user? Make it easy for the user to add services as they master the system, but disable them by default in the interest of security and flattening the learning curve. That'll help user acceptance a lot. Nice admin tools like HelixCode's will help, too.
In the power/ease future, I'm really looking forward to MacOS X. It'll offer me a lot that the MacOS doesn't. On the other hand, I'm terrified of what happens when the typical Mac user meets the waves of script kiddies out there with what will be essentially an unsecured BSD system. Ouch.
...of mainstream devices for a while, at least. It's because of size and convenience factors. I can go out and use a variety of best-of-breed tools today to accomplish my needs, or look for a big honkin' everything device, but I think the discrete device approach is better. Here's why.
Merging the PDA and the cellphone works, to a point. But numberic keypads are a horribly inefficient text entry method, and keyboards go against the grain of the smaller phones in the market nowadays. Want to see a merged PDA/cellphone? The PDQ phone from Kyocera (formerly Qualcomm) works pretty well, despite it's size. It combines a CDMA cellphone with a Palm III.
2-way pagers and e-mail devices are also probably going to merge into the PDA in the future. The Motorola devices (sold by SkyTel) and Blackberry don't stand that well on their own when compared to a PDA with wireless capability. If the coverage associated with devices like GoAmerica's Minstrel for the Palm V series can be solved (the Minstrel for the Palm V uses CDPD, mostly available on the East Coast except for Atlanta), then a PDA with wireless will blow away the 2-way paging market.
On my belt, at any given time, you can find one or more of the following:
And that's just on my belt or in my pockets. When I carry a briefcase, it has either my iBook or a Dell Inspiron 7500 in it, along with connectivity gear, chargers, etc. I take a healhty back satchel with me to trade shows, meetings, and so forth that I use to carry my GoType and any paperwork I need, too.
Now, let's take a look at what can be replaced or combined:
I could get the GoAmerica service for my Palm Vx and dump the SkyTel pager. But the pager will receive pages virtually anywhere in the US, and send in many places, unlike the Minstrel which relies on the CDPD network. I live north of Boston, where CDPD coverage is good, but the BellSouth wireless and ARDIS coverage (what RIM's devices use) sucks. So a Blackberry is out. I go to Atlanta a couple of times a year, so that's a strike against the Minstrel - Atlanta is the only major East Coast metro area with no CDPD. And I spend a lot of leisure time on the Vineyard, where CDPD works in some locations but not others, and none of the other services work at all - but I can get pages.
So I'm stuck with the pager for now, until something better is more built out.
The Palm is something you'd have to rip from my cold dead fingers. I use it everywhere, for reading, storing technical reference material, and organizing my life. I also sync a huge load of content with AvantGo whenever I'm plugged in. As I said above, I'd take it wireless, but there's a lot of coverage issues for me. I also have a GoType keyboard that I use sometimes to make it a laptop substitute. The Palm stays.
The cellphone stays because it's tri-band (800 MHz AMPS, 800 MHz CDMA, 1900 PCS), tiny, and it works anywhere I've ever been. I can tuck it in a pocket or a glove compartment, it's relatively cheap to feed ($35/month), and there are times you have to talk to someone by voice. I prefer using the pager, though, when possible. I don't give people my cellular number, but I do give them my e-mail address.
The Leatherman stays because it's mondo cool. I have a Micra on my keychain though, making it the first thing I dump from my belt. I also keep a PST in my car.
The problem is that all these devices are small, but together they're large. The only thing I can really see combining are the Palm and the pager, though. If the cellphone were bigger I'd probably leave it at home - like I did the Qualcomm 820 I used to have.
Each one performs a discrete function and can be ditched if I need to. The Palm would be the last one to go, I think, since too much of my brain is outsourced to it. I think that's why I prefer to have several smaller devices each performing a given function than to make it monolithic. If any one device is not functioning or not available I can use the others. If I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket, it needs to be a heck of a basket, and I don't think that level of integration, miniaturization, reliability, and low cost will be practical anytime soon.
But whoever designs a 2-way pager, PDA, and cell phone that takes up the space of a Palm V, plays MP3's, gets me e-mail and web content, and runs on a battery charge for a couple of days straight, please drop me an e-mail and I'll come buy it. Maybe.
I had a brain cramp and mentioned the wrong TRG. Noorda's TRG _isn't_ the Palm cloner one, it's the one that works on clustering software (the former Wolf Mountain guys from Novell). I haven't had my coffee yet, sorry.
The Canopy Group is Ray Noorda's private venture capital company that he started after leaving Novell. He funds just about anything that'll take a shot at Microsoft, like Willows Software, Caldera, and Palm cloner TRG. He also has money in Troll Tech, too.
Ray Noorda is really the perfect sugar daddy for what's left of SCO. He's ridiculously rich (not Gates level, but he has enough to fund a lot of startups) and he hates Microsoft. And he already owned Unix once - he's the one who had Novell buy Unix System Labs back in the early part of the '90s. I met him some years back (and I'm friends with some people whe are and have been connected with him), and, based mostly on the word of the people I know, I consider him to be one of the few Good Guys in the business.
I was in just such a situation about 12 years ago - I'd graduated from writing dBASE code to writing 4th Dimension code on Macs, and I was working on a customer program. I ran into the wall, trying to code things I could have done blindfolded in dBASE.
I studied the system for quite some time trying to get around it, and finally concluded that I'd hit my limitation as a programmer. I just couldn't make the leap to the different programming style that was needed. I resigned the contract, gave a good deal of the money back, and wound up going into networking instead. Since then, I've written only a handful of code - a couple of HyperCard apps when that first came out for fun, and a few shell scripts and Perl hacks to automate stuff. And one more "for pay" coding job - a script app written in the old Mac White Knight comm language to automate file transters for a doctor I knew. That's it.
Needless to say, I hope that most people do not follow my example! I lucked out and was able to pick up another skill (that I turned out to be better at), when I ran into my programming limits.
Mozilla would have done much better had they just worried about basic functionality and released it a year or so ago, then added all the cool stuff and eye candy. In the world of mainstream browser usage and web design, the game is over - and it ended about a year ago, when Microsoft completely walked away with the marketplace.
What browser is on virtually all X86 PC's (since over 90% of them run Windows)? Internet Explorer. What is the standard browser on all Macs? Internet Explorer. And what browser do pretty much all the big commercial websites design for the quirks of? Internet Explorer. I don't see a Mozilla that's still not ready for a 1.0 designation making any significant dent in that reality anymore.
Maybe a year ago there was still room. Today, if anything's going to happen to give Mozilla a toehold, it'll be the rise of Linux as a mainstream desktop OS. That won't knock Windows off its perch anytime soon, but could eventually happen, and if it does, there's your Mozilla market.
The thing is, even if Mozilla shipped a commercial-quality release tomorrow, Microsoft isn't going to provide it except at the point of a gun, and Apple won't provide it now since they've got a deal with Microsoft to provide IE as the default, and they now push Earthlink over AOL (which would be the other channel to get Apple to include Mozilla). There's your consumer market right there (Microsoft and Apple) - no Mozilla included.
And people like us are about the only people who install browsers for fun and change them on a whim. The masses use what comes with the computer, and only install the upgrades that the computer's automatic update software tell them to.
Ergo, Mozilla is toast. That sucks, don't it?
- -Josh Turiel
Re:this sums up the slashdot journalistic ethos
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NYT On DeCSS Case
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· Score: 2
This isn't the news. This is Slashdot. News is presented (and always has been) with a spin strongly tilted towards the Linux-using geeks of the world who generally are supporters of all open source and Free software. Though there are a lot of people who read this that aren't among them, the slant has always been in that direction.
Regardless of the actual provisions of the DMCA, the spin the plaintiff and attorneys have been putting on the case is one of piracy. Also regardless, the truth is far grayer than that - a point most mainstream media has sadly missed. Is the truth entirely the truth from Corley and the EFF's point of view? No, but it's closer than the MPAA's version, for sure.
Anyhow, there's nothing wrong with the Slashdot version of the news. Nobody here's ever pretended to be anything but biased.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a lot of decisions that can be made that risk descending the proverbial slope - many ethical issues having nothing to do with this discussion included.
There's a difference, however slight, between screening for existing problems that are known to run in the families involved and simple selection of the "best" characteristics. Each human is precious - and it's a Good Thing to try and ensure that new humans will not die horribly or prematurely from things that can be avoided (or simply by choosing the more viable of the available embryos in an IVF process. Most people will, of course, continue to be born the old-fashioned way - since these risks only affect a relatively small number of people.
We, for instance, have no genetic "issues" leading us to IVF, it's a case of having no success over many years of the traditional method. Most IVF couples are in the same boat - genetic reasons are a tiny percentage of the reasons for IVF, it's usually plain old infertility problems that bring you there, not building a master race or any of that kind of crap.
The other issue this touches is the "what is a life?" question. Obviously, there are the traditional pro-life and pro-choice sides. In normal conception, one egg is fertilized by one sperm - and the question then becomes one of when is it human? Killing humans is, of course, wrong - but the definition is far different between the medical and the religious perspectives, and most people cleave between those standards. Most assisted reproductive technologies create (and often fertilize) as many as 20 eggs - are we morally obligated to implant every one of those? I don't think so (and 20 children is not in my plan, I'll guarantee that!). Is it an all-or-nothing propostion?
But if we can repair things like Huntington's or Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) in the womb or in the petri dish, why not? I don't think we should necessarily abort the child who will be born blind, but if the parents have 10 viable embryos to choose, and one of them has a gene that leads to blindness, and one has the CF genes, assuming they can't be repaired, why implant those when the others don't have it? That's where I draw the line. Biological reproduction is a crapshoot too, when genetic defects are concerned - having the gene doesn't guarantee that the child will have it, too.
I'd avoid the Mengele references as a part of this discussion, though. Not only did he and his sort remove a good deal of my relatives from the human race, but his effort were designed to produce better Aryans (survival of the fittest) - whereas what we're generally talking about here is intended to simply produce humans (of any race) that survive, period. There's no master plan, other than trying to provide a couple with a healthy child.
And it's awful close to invoking Godwin's Law, too, besides being something that, in a lot of places, would get you assaulted by the person you accuse.
- -Josh Turiel
This couple, as I've read in many of the reports, wanted another child. Unfortunately, they had a significant risk of conceiving another child with the same disorder. Since it was possible to screen the embryo for the defect, they did so - and as luck would have it, a healthy embryo could also, after birth, give them a chance to cure their other child.
There are some aspects of this (ie., selection) that could raise ethical questions, but I don't think this case is one those questions apply to. If anything, this is an exapmple of the positive uses of the kind of reproductive and diagnostic technologies that are available to us.
I can also state unequivocally (since my wife and I are going through this now) that IVF is not a trivial procedure at all. The process is complicated, painful, and requires substantial fortitude and commitment to complete. The end result is a fairly large number of fertilized embryos, of which the most robust are identified and up to five of which are implanted (in all but a handful of cases, only one or two of them implant successfully). In a case where there is a substantial risk of a deadly defect being passed, it's to the benefit of the future child, the parents, and society as a whole if that defect can be identified and either avoided or even corrected.
The challenge is to avoid the slippery slope of typing for positive, "trivial" characteristics (like hair color, eye color, sex, height potential), and just look for the severe and fatal genetic defects that can occur.
- -Josh Turiel
The oversimplified version of what's up is this:
Windows to Mac ports often have to reinvent a decent amount of the wheel, since they will typically use the MS DirectX API's (DirectSound, DirectX, etc.). This can result in some inefficiency in the port.
Also, Windows does a somewhat better job of swapping out RAM as needed - the kernel has a smaller footprint, despite the OS' bloat overall. Apple's monolithic MacOS needs about 32MB of RAM just to boot nowadays - all their newer systems ship with 64MB or more in the base config. My iBook, with VM off, uses 42.2MB of RAM for the OS! Thank heavens I have 160MB in it! With VM on, the RAM usage drops to 27MB for the OS, but performance drops noticeably. The MacOS VM model is fundamentally broken, and will remain so until the end of time (at least in the Classic OS). OS X will reduce memory needs, though Classic apps will continue to be pigs.
They also copy a ton o' stuff off the CD - but I think you can skip a lot of it and run a lite install.
It plays quite nicely on our iMac DV-450, and pretty well, though occasionally a little sluggish on my iBook-300. The gameplay is actually a little snappier on the iMac than it is on my Athlon 700 - indicating to me that the folks who ported it did a really nice job, and concentrated on speed over size.
- -Josh Turiel
Well, they claim presentations are one of the things it's good for now (it's composite video). The iBook can do either 640x480 or 800x600 natively (at least on the original one, it does a pretty good job of scaling), and the 640x480 mode should be good enough for PowerPointing if the 800x600 mode isn't supported for video out.
It'd be nicer if the video out was S-Video, but this works, too.
All in all, it's a good feature set for an entry-level laptop. Don't forget, Apple wants you to buy a PowerBook for the heavy lifting and "corporate"-type work, anyway. Other than the screen resolution and 66 MHz system bus, this matches up real well against a Pismo now. Apple's portables are arguably more directly competitive versus Wintel prices at this point than their desktops are.
- -Josh Turiel
They lowered the price on the base model by $100 (to $1499), bumped up the speed, and added Firewire, a bigger drive, and an A/V out. Too bad that Key Lime is so damned ugly - but the masses may just go for it. They had already increased base RAM and HD size once, back in January or February (to 64MB and 6GB, respectively), with no price change.
Actually, the new iBook SE is particularly sweet - a 466 MHz processor, 10GB drive, 64MB RAM, DVD, TFT display, Mobility 128 video, and Firewire for $1800 compares real well with the brand-name Wintel competition. I may consider upgrading at some point myself - I have one of the original iBooks that I hacked a 6GB drive into (taking an iBook apart just can't suck enough, by the way), and it's been real nice, but more speed and Firewire would just rule completely for me.
- -Josh Turiel
That's the standard Java disclaimer - Apple includes Java, so they use the disclaimer to cover their collective butts.
Microsoft includes the disclaimer, too (since they have a JVM also), as should any commercial Linux vendor with a JVM, but I think in Microsoft's case it refers more to the rest of their operating system than it does to Java...
- -Josh Turiel
Did anybody consider that maybe the Martians have only recently (in geologic time) evolved to the point that they could build machines powerful enough to lob the darned things at us?
It's probably enough fun to keep them pretty busy nowadays - I imagine with Martian weather things could otherwise be a little monotonous.
- -Josh Turiel
We digress a little here, but M$ introduced Windows Update as part of Windows 98, in mid '98. The Red Hat update wizard they have arrived with the debut of RH 6.0, whenever that was. Sure, the Linux update wizards are robust and capable, but the Microsoft one was there real early in the game, and it works very well. They update any apps that Microsoft is willing to allow into the MS sandbox (for instance, Flash and Shockwave updates can be downloaded from it), but not third-party apps in general.
They also have an Office Update site as well that uses the same technology (a funky ActiveX control) to check for and patch Office 2000 code.
What Microsoft doesn't do is roll every single update into Windows Update - a lot of the security hole patches for servers are only accessible from the kbase article or the Security homepage. Windows Update is more focused on the consumer OS and apps.
- -Josh Turiel
Theo has a security audit model that works terrifically well - having trusted, talented people audit the crap out of the code and being real finicky about releases.
The Linux model (and the generic Open Source model, at that), relies on a broad pool of users with code access reading and using it. A lot of bugs, many of them security-relat, will be found this way.
However, though security bugs will be found and fixed with the infinite-monkeys methodology, it does fall short on finding security issues proactively. You can find a lot of holes in that fashion, but to really ultra-secure and OS, you need people who are as freakish about security as Theo. The other side of that is that the users who seek out OpenBSD are also likely to be much smarter about security themselves.
Linux is a reasonably secure OS for the "average" user, and the methodologies are adequate for the end result. The companies distributing the OS need to be more proactive about looking for holes, though - there's a lot of ways to root a Linux box, and the consequences of allowing it to happen are sufficiently high that it's worth more work to find holes before they get into the distro.
Say what you will about Microsoft, but their Windows Update is a really nice mechanism for distributing patches and updates - none of the Linux vendors (even Mandrake) come close to that level of functionality. Most Slashdot readers will be fairly proactive about their boxes, but that doesn't mean all Linux users are like that. They need an easier way to patch and update their boxes when holes are found.
- -Josh Turiel
"Cadillac Man" wasn't by any means a great film, but it really wasn't bad, either. Williams' character was fairly interesting and entertaing ("God, I love to sell!"), and Tim Robbins played his old-style Dumb White Guy part well. The only lost points I saw in it were from letting Fran Drescher have an opportunity to speak on the big screen - I hate that voice!
Anyhow, it wasn't that bad - worth a rainy night rental.
How could they have put "Cadillac Man" on the list when there are dozens of overlooked Kevin Costner movies to choose from?
- -Josh Turiel
If it's simple to support an existing Linux port of a game using the compatibility libraries, then this is a can't lose for either Loki or BSDi. It raises the BSD profile a little further, and helps Loki sell a few more games with no real effort (they aren't repackaging or recoding).
I'm not sure either Linux or BSD is mature enough to be a viable gaming platform yet, but that is an issue best covered in this thread from Sunday.
- -Josh Turiel
Novell brings a couple of things to the table. First, of course, is NetWare. Still the fastest pure file/print solution out there, with pretty good Java servlet capability bolted on. Then, there's the crown jewel - NDS. NDS is already highly portable, can manage users on Unix and Windows, and can be used to manage desktops very nicely. NDS can be extended to almost anything, and unlike MS Active Directory, NDS has over 8 years of development (and live users) behind it.
IBM has systems available all over the map - from Intel PC servers running Windows or Linux, to RS/6000 systems with AIX, to AS/400 and S/390 minis and mainframes. NDS could help them tie this picture together better. And they own Lotus - which could benefit nicely from better NDS integration.
Not to mention that IBM has done a nice job with Lotus - sure, 1-2-3/SmartSuite is toast, but they've done a terrific business with Notes, and still have a substantial lead over Microsoft in the category.
It's a good fit for IBM, good technology, and a chance to get one of the few missing pieces in IBM's technology arsenal for a cheap price. IBM could buy Novell with pocket change. I'm surprised this deal didn't happen a year ago.
- -Josh Turiel
Any environment that is maintained without change controls and proper procedures is a disaster waiting to happen, regardless of the OS platform used. If anything, it's easier to give Linux (or any Unix) users partial administration rights that are just designed for that user to perform certain proscribed tasks.
This is where analysts go wrong often, and I work for a company that uses both Gartner and Meta - they are useful for certain things and can provide useful industry analysis. The problem is that sometimes general purpose analysts don't have a full technical background, and wind up having to speculate on things using bad data (that they don't realize is problematic). This analyst had some good points in the earlier part of the article, but went to the wrong source due to his lack of understanding of change controls and of Linux . If he had understood it properly, this would not have been flamebait.
That said, is Linux the ideal server environment for the clueless? Of course not. It can be like giving a loaded gun to a child. But to go on someone's word that any Joe Admin can screw Linux up because "anybody can change it" and that therefore Linux is a Bad Thing is just silly.
After all, if you want to really screw up Windows, there's an easy way. Just install something.
- -Josh Turiel
Of course, Linux games don't sell that well! There aren't that many Linux desktop users yet today, and they aren't necessarily heading for stores to buy their software, either. Not to mention that Linux is relatively difficult to configure and optimize for gaming, mainly due to complex and incomplete support for 3D, high-end sound cards, and cool input devices (like force feedback controllers).
When an average desktop Linux distro has support for all this in the base install and easy to configure, there will be more people who do their gaming on Linux. Until then, most users who like to play games will probably keep a Win98 partition around for games, and do the rest of their work in Linux. In the meantime, Linux gamers are barely a blip on the charts, relatively speaking, and stocking games isn't worth the shelf space for most retailers. Hell, if Mac users have trouble finding games in stores (and getting them to sell in reasonably large numbers when they do appear in stores), with a million-plus Macs sold every year, then Linux users aren't even on the radar by comparison. In time, they probably will be, though - but it won't be until we solve the problems I mentioned above.
There's money in Linux software for some vendors, and there's probably money in Linux games, too - but patience is a virtue until the desktop is ready for the true mainstream. That day is coming, hopefully soon.
- -Josh Turiel
Actually, in my case, you're right. I did want some relatively small restraints put on them, but I think a breakup was a bad idea. I had a letter in Infoworld a while back that can be searched on that had my whole solution - I won't repost it here.
If a society agrees on rules to conduct business by, I have no problem with those rules being used and enforced. Since we haven't risen up to overturn the Sherman Act, then it's the law of the land until such time as it is overturned - Microsoft broke it, and should be made to play by the rules. Carving them up isn't right.
- -Josh Turiel
Because, despite there being a tremendous number of silly people associated with the stated goals of the Libertarian Party, I happen to agree with the overall goals anyway.
To oversimplify the decision-making process for me:
The Republicans want to let my company do whatever it wants, and tell me what to do in the privacy of my own home. They assume that I'm Christian, and generally don't support not being one. And they want to take a lot of my money and waste it on dumb stuff like shooting down missiles.
The Democrats want to tell my company what to do, and let me do whatever I want, but only if I'm a minority or gay. They want to take even more of my money, and instead of wasting it on shooting down missiles, they want to waste it on a big bureaucracy of people who will, in turn, give a little bit of that money to poor people.
The Libertarians want government to stay the heck out of people's lives, let them make their own business and moral choices, and use as little money as possible doing so. Other parties have made big splashes - the radical left has turned to the Green Party, and the Reform Party sprung into being on the whims and bankroll of one man (let's see how they do with Perot off the ballot before we call them a real third party). Neither of them appeal to me. Were he running for President under any banner, Jesse Ventura is ironically the politician whose views agree most closely with mine on most issues.
That's why I'm a Libertarian. It's the closest party to my views. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but the Republicrats do nothing for me, Nader is pathetic, Perot is nuts, and Buchanan is possibly the most frightening man in mainstream politics.
- -Josh Turiel
And Cyberselfish is proof.
Yes, libertarian thought puts the individual first. But generally, that comes from a belief that the individual is capable of making their own informed decisions about what's best for them - not from a "me first" attitude.
Where that coincides with Objectivism is the raising up of the individual. But Objectivism leans more to the "me first" than does libertarianism. However, despite the reasons, since the two do converge on the individual, a lot of libertarians are Objectivists, and virtually all Objectivists are libertarian.
However, that leaves a lot of us who wouldn't touch Objectivism with a ten-foot pole, but are libertarian in belief and practice, and Libertarian (with a capital letter this time) in political affiliation.
The difference to me is that libertarianism is fundamentally optimistic about human nature. We assume that people may be mildly selfish, but are willing to make some sacrifice on behalf of the common good if they are not coerced to do so. I may not be as wealthy as a dot-com millionaire (or Rob and Jeff), but I give money to charitable causes on a regular basis, donate pretty nice stuff to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and the like, bring canned food to my town's homeless shelter, and my used newspapers and other stuff to the pet shelter, and also vociferously support the Libertarian Party, of which I am a member. No, I'm not a saint, but there's no conflict involved there, folks. And I'm not the only one who behaves this way.
The people who don't Get It generally confuse libertarianism with Objectivism. Don't paint us all with that brush - it's far too wide and the Objectivist paint is far too thick. A reasonable amount of altruism is not incompatible with being a Libertarian.
- -Josh Turiel
I think that OS X will be shipped in a nominally secure configuration. But, as we all know, new vulnerabilities in existing systems are found regularly. MacOS X is BSD at the core, for the most part. A lot of the vulnerabilities that people find in BSD will probably apply to OS X as well, and the average user has little to no awareness of security issues (as witnessed by the Windows users of the world).
I don't think that MacOS X will be inherently unsecure, though, just vulnerable - there's a difference. The classic MacOS is extemely secure, with vulnerability mainly being in the area of DOS-type attacks. That's not by design, per se - it's because the MacOS is single-user in nature, with no CLI or real shell capability. MacOS X is a multi-user, UNIX-based system. That's a whole new ballgame from a security perspective as far as Mac users go.
- -Josh Turiel
I can see both sides here. When I was just starting out many moons ago, I could have used a tool to make editing config files and managing the system easier. It would have saved me a lot of time and agony. Today, I can run a system just fine, but it can be a pain having to remember all the details. Easy-to-use GUI config tools definitely have a place, since not everybody can or necessarily should be hand-tweaking everything - opening up the system to misconfigurations. Not in a world filled with script kiddies, in particular.
.conf file - not now, not ever. Who are we to say that's wrong? But more importantly, we need to start issuing distributions that are optimized for single-user use. Why load wu-ftpd if it's not needed by a user? Make it easy for the user to add services as they master the system, but disable them by default in the interest of security and flattening the learning curve. That'll help user acceptance a lot. Nice admin tools like HelixCode's will help, too.
If Linux is going to penetrate the mainstream of computing, we need these tools - Joe User doesn't want to know about editing a
In the power/ease future, I'm really looking forward to MacOS X. It'll offer me a lot that the MacOS doesn't. On the other hand, I'm terrified of what happens when the typical Mac user meets the waves of script kiddies out there with what will be essentially an unsecured BSD system. Ouch.
- -Josh Turiel
...of mainstream devices for a while, at least. It's because of size and convenience factors. I can go out and use a variety of best-of-breed tools today to accomplish my needs, or look for a big honkin' everything device, but I think the discrete device approach is better. Here's why.
Merging the PDA and the cellphone works, to a point. But numberic keypads are a horribly inefficient text entry method, and keyboards go against the grain of the smaller phones in the market nowadays. Want to see a merged PDA/cellphone? The PDQ phone from Kyocera (formerly Qualcomm) works pretty well, despite it's size. It combines a CDMA cellphone with a Palm III.
2-way pagers and e-mail devices are also probably going to merge into the PDA in the future. The Motorola devices (sold by SkyTel) and Blackberry don't stand that well on their own when compared to a PDA with wireless capability. If the coverage associated with devices like GoAmerica's Minstrel for the Palm V series can be solved (the Minstrel for the Palm V uses CDPD, mostly available on the East Coast except for Atlanta), then a PDA with wireless will blow away the 2-way paging market.
On my belt, at any given time, you can find one or more of the following:
Motorola PageWriter 2000X (SkyTel 2-way paging)
Palm Vx
Motorola StarTac CDMA
Leatherman Wave
And that's just on my belt or in my pockets. When I carry a briefcase, it has either my iBook or a Dell Inspiron 7500 in it, along with connectivity gear, chargers, etc. I take a healhty back satchel with me to trade shows, meetings, and so forth that I use to carry my GoType and any paperwork I need, too.
Now, let's take a look at what can be replaced or combined:
I could get the GoAmerica service for my Palm Vx and dump the SkyTel pager. But the pager will receive pages virtually anywhere in the US, and send in many places, unlike the Minstrel which relies on the CDPD network. I live north of Boston, where CDPD coverage is good, but the BellSouth wireless and ARDIS coverage (what RIM's devices use) sucks. So a Blackberry is out. I go to Atlanta a couple of times a year, so that's a strike against the Minstrel - Atlanta is the only major East Coast metro area with no CDPD. And I spend a lot of leisure time on the Vineyard, where CDPD works in some locations but not others, and none of the other services work at all - but I can get pages.
So I'm stuck with the pager for now, until something better is more built out.
The Palm is something you'd have to rip from my cold dead fingers. I use it everywhere, for reading, storing technical reference material, and organizing my life. I also sync a huge load of content with AvantGo whenever I'm plugged in. As I said above, I'd take it wireless, but there's a lot of coverage issues for me. I also have a GoType keyboard that I use sometimes to make it a laptop substitute. The Palm stays.
The cellphone stays because it's tri-band (800 MHz AMPS, 800 MHz CDMA, 1900 PCS), tiny, and it works anywhere I've ever been. I can tuck it in a pocket or a glove compartment, it's relatively cheap to feed ($35/month), and there are times you have to talk to someone by voice. I prefer using the pager, though, when possible. I don't give people my cellular number, but I do give them my e-mail address.
The Leatherman stays because it's mondo cool. I have a Micra on my keychain though, making it the first thing I dump from my belt. I also keep a PST in my car.
The problem is that all these devices are small, but together they're large. The only thing I can really see combining are the Palm and the pager, though. If the cellphone were bigger I'd probably leave it at home - like I did the Qualcomm 820 I used to have.
Each one performs a discrete function and can be ditched if I need to. The Palm would be the last one to go, I think, since too much of my brain is outsourced to it. I think that's why I prefer to have several smaller devices each performing a given function than to make it monolithic. If any one device is not functioning or not available I can use the others. If I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket, it needs to be a heck of a basket, and I don't think that level of integration, miniaturization, reliability, and low cost will be practical anytime soon.
But whoever designs a 2-way pager, PDA, and cell phone that takes up the space of a Palm V, plays MP3's, gets me e-mail and web content, and runs on a battery charge for a couple of days straight, please drop me an e-mail and I'll come buy it. Maybe.
- -Josh Turiel
I had a brain cramp and mentioned the wrong TRG. Noorda's TRG _isn't_ the Palm cloner one, it's the one that works on clustering software (the former Wolf Mountain guys from Novell). I haven't had my coffee yet, sorry.
- -Josh Turiel
The Canopy Group is Ray Noorda's private venture capital company that he started after leaving Novell. He funds just about anything that'll take a shot at Microsoft, like Willows Software, Caldera, and Palm cloner TRG. He also has money in Troll Tech, too.
Ray Noorda is really the perfect sugar daddy for what's left of SCO. He's ridiculously rich (not Gates level, but he has enough to fund a lot of startups) and he hates Microsoft. And he already owned Unix once - he's the one who had Novell buy Unix System Labs back in the early part of the '90s. I met him some years back (and I'm friends with some people whe are and have been connected with him), and, based mostly on the word of the people I know, I consider him to be one of the few Good Guys in the business.
- -Josh Turiel
I was in just such a situation about 12 years ago - I'd graduated from writing dBASE code to writing 4th Dimension code on Macs, and I was working on a customer program. I ran into the wall, trying to code things I could have done blindfolded in dBASE.
I studied the system for quite some time trying to get around it, and finally concluded that I'd hit my limitation as a programmer. I just couldn't make the leap to the different programming style that was needed. I resigned the contract, gave a good deal of the money back, and wound up going into networking instead. Since then, I've written only a handful of code - a couple of HyperCard apps when that first came out for fun, and a few shell scripts and Perl hacks to automate stuff. And one more "for pay" coding job - a script app written in the old Mac White Knight comm language to automate file transters for a doctor I knew. That's it.
Needless to say, I hope that most people do not follow my example! I lucked out and was able to pick up another skill (that I turned out to be better at), when I ran into my programming limits.
Because even then I wasn't a very good coder...
- -Josh Turiel
Mozilla would have done much better had they just worried about basic functionality and released it a year or so ago, then added all the cool stuff and eye candy. In the world of mainstream browser usage and web design, the game is over - and it ended about a year ago, when Microsoft completely walked away with the marketplace.
What browser is on virtually all X86 PC's (since over 90% of them run Windows)? Internet Explorer. What is the standard browser on all Macs? Internet Explorer. And what browser do pretty much all the big commercial websites design for the quirks of? Internet Explorer. I don't see a Mozilla that's still not ready for a 1.0 designation making any significant dent in that reality anymore.
Maybe a year ago there was still room. Today, if anything's going to happen to give Mozilla a toehold, it'll be the rise of Linux as a mainstream desktop OS. That won't knock Windows off its perch anytime soon, but could eventually happen, and if it does, there's your Mozilla market.
The thing is, even if Mozilla shipped a commercial-quality release tomorrow, Microsoft isn't going to provide it except at the point of a gun, and Apple won't provide it now since they've got a deal with Microsoft to provide IE as the default, and they now push Earthlink over AOL (which would be the other channel to get Apple to include Mozilla). There's your consumer market right there (Microsoft and Apple) - no Mozilla included.
And people like us are about the only people who install browsers for fun and change them on a whim. The masses use what comes with the computer, and only install the upgrades that the computer's automatic update software tell them to.
Ergo, Mozilla is toast. That sucks, don't it?
- -Josh Turiel
This isn't the news. This is Slashdot. News is presented (and always has been) with a spin strongly tilted towards the Linux-using geeks of the world who generally are supporters of all open source and Free software. Though there are a lot of people who read this that aren't among them, the slant has always been in that direction.
Regardless of the actual provisions of the DMCA, the spin the plaintiff and attorneys have been putting on the case is one of piracy. Also regardless, the truth is far grayer than that - a point most mainstream media has sadly missed. Is the truth entirely the truth from Corley and the EFF's point of view? No, but it's closer than the MPAA's version, for sure.
Anyhow, there's nothing wrong with the Slashdot version of the news. Nobody here's ever pretended to be anything but biased.
- -Josh Turiel